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Luke's BH9 Outback - EJ251 Turbo

43K views 173 replies 13 participants last post by  scruff3333 
#1 · (Edited)
This is the story of my Rev D 2.5 manual 2003 Outback BH5. It has 423,000km and looks the part.

This car will take over daily duties from my GF8 so I can repair the rear end damage.

My parents bought this car second hand in roughly 2006 to replace an old Mazda 626 wagon. It had about 100,000-130,000km on it. Since them they've put another 300,000km on it. In the 13 years of ownership the only mechanical failure was the clutch at 300,000km. This car has had battles with several kangaroos and wombats and lived to see another day. It has hauled cows, sheep and alpacas and much more in the boot. It burns oil like a 2 stroke and it still won't die.

As it has reached 423,000km it has been retired into my hands.

Mod List

Engine
  • Twin Scroll Equal Length Headers (Unknown Brand)(Wrapped in Heatwrap Tape)
  • Twin Scroll to Single Up-pipe (Unknown Brand)(Wrapped in Heatwrap Tape)
  • 57mm (2.25 inch) Intercooler Piping
  • Front Mount (65mm x 180mm x 550mm)(2.5" x 7" x 21.5")
  • TD04 off a 2004 WRX Sedan (EJ205)(Using 5-6 PSI Wastegate)
  • New Age Alternator Cover
  • Custom 2.5" exhaust
Handling
  • Front Sway Bar off a GC8 WRX Wagon
  • Front Sway Bar off a GC8 WRX Wagon
  • 316mm 2 Pot Front Brakes off a 2007 Spec B H6 Wagon
  • Koni Front and Rear Adjustable Struts
  • Gen 4 GT Springs
  • B4 Rear Sway Bar
  • Liberty (Legacy) Rear Bumpstops
Internal
  • Black Leather Front Seats off a 2000 Liberty Sedan
  • Black Leather Rear Seats off a 2000 Outback Limited (Not Originally from that Car)
  • Leather Armrest off a 2000 Outback Limited
  • Leather Door Cards off a 2000 Outback Limited
  • Sony XAV-AX100 Head Unit
External
  • GT-B Legacy Hatch and Wing
  • Rev D Turbo Bonnet
  • Front and Rear Spats
  • JDM Legacy Center Garnish
  • Custom Outback Grill
  • OEM Rain Guards
Wheels
  • Advan RG1's 17x7.5 +45
  • Bridgestone RE003 235/45R17

Engine Management/Support
  • Project Lambda
  • Bosch 3 Bar Map Sensor
  • AEM Air/Fuel Gauge 30-4110
  • Aem Boost Gauge 30-4406
-------------------------------------------

Stock Options Equipped

Engine
  • EJ251
  • 5 Speed Manual Low Range Gearbox
Exterior
  • JDM Headlights
  • Front Fender Indicators
  • Clear Rear Indicators
  • AUDM Bumpers, Wheel Arches, Sideskirts and Door Panels (All slightly different from the USDM ones for reasons I guess)
-------------------------------------------

Components Replaced. Either as Listed Above or Due to bad Condition
  • Front Bumper
  • Front Seats
  • Rear Seats
  • Glove Box Cover- Radio Trim
  • Rear Cup Holders
  • Door Cards
  • Boot Scuff Panels
  • Spare Wheel Cover
  • Mirrors
  • Rear Tailgate
  • Tailgate Center Garnish
  • Drivers Fog Light
  • Subframe
  • Steering Rack
  • Radiator Cap
  • AC Tensioner
  • Drivers Sun Visor
  • Carpet






Luke :)
 

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#72 ·
So work on the car has been a bit slow this weekend due to some personal issues so I thought that updating this would help. Since we had Anzac day on the Thursday I took the Friday off and had a four day weekend. I decided to work on something else non engine related for a change would be nice so I did that with varied success.

I started with painting the bottom of the front struts to clean them up a front the flaking yellow paint. There will be a photo below as I didn't many photos this weekend.

Then I did the front brakes. Bit of an upgrade from stock.



Strut and brake installed.



Then I popped the Spec B wheels I got on as they will fit over the brakes. The car might be a bit low.



I wasn't happy with this ride height as although it can look great it's not the look I'm after. So I didn't do any more. Photo of me looking very concerned of the ride height. You can also see a can of coke getting crushed by the ride height. Fun fact also is at this height you can't get the low height from under the sub-frame.



So I posted in a local Liberty group and tomorrow I'll be swapping the lowered Kings Springs for some stock GT wagon springs which should raise it 20-30mm. I'm not making any money off it but that's okay as I think paired with the Koni struts it'll be a nice combo.

Once the Spec B wheels were on I immediately decided that I wasn't happy with them so I've put them up for sale. I'm going to try and find some stock Liberty B4 5 spoke wheels as they'll look nice and fairly stock.

That's all for now. I should have the oil feed arriving in the new fortnight or so and a 90 degree fitting to tap the valve cover so that'll be nice to finally get done.

Luke :)
 
#74 ·
Yeah they are. I'll probably switch the rear bump stops or liberty ones. In regards to the fronts being low, I've heard that the Bilsteins have a different spring top which which makes the Gen 3 front way lower than on the Gen 4's. I only suggest this as mine came out level as you'll see below.

So after last weekends suspension fiasco, I managed to pick up some stock Gen 4 GT springs. So first thing Saturday I installed them. I've gotten scarily quick as all 4 corners were done in around two hours





They now have an even gap all around the wheel which looks much better. They even make the Spec. B wheels look alright. These wheels aren't staying but I don't know what will replace them. Some name brand wheels like Rays, Enkei, Works or Advan would be great, but probably out of budget. I'm keeping an eye out on deals though. I think 18's are the right size for this car.

I didn't paint the rear brakes or underlay due to wanting to see what it looked like. I'll do it when I get new wheels/while I do the swaybar.

Next was to move on to the tailgate. I wanted to get it just to get parts installed so they're not sitting around. When I pulled of the center light from the OG tailgate this is what I found.



15 years of dust build up. It was a couple of mm's thick too. The light is actually cracked but I figured I better install it until I get a new one.

Next was to remove the wiring. Much to my annoyance, Subaru decided not to install a plug near the door hinge anywhere. This meant pulling all the wiring through the top. That was fun.

I need to figure out how the wire up the 4th brake light as the previous owner just twist and taped it, a personal favourite of mine (yeah no).



Before the install I managed to flatten out most of the damage on the top. It'll need some grinding and filler but it's good for now.



All installed with the GT-B wing too. Sorry for the crap pic, the light was not allowing me to get any decent pics of the rear of the car.



Next I started to do a general clean out of the car, and I pulled out the new carpet I bought to let it air. I realised I never took pics so here it is.
The white is a bit foam that has come off the bottom.



It's actually in really good condition, just needs wash to get the dirt out of it. The current one has stains left, right and center. There's a tiny bit of damage near the left foot rest, but I think I should be able to patch.



Next I installed the fog lights to get them out of the car. It adds so much to the front end and looks mint with the fmic.



I also managed to score a bit of storage space behind the garden shed so i can store stuff before selling/scrapping. The wheels I won't selling as they have basically new tyres. So the plan is to paint them black and put them on my brothers Forester as he wants black rims and he's not painting by WRX six spokes. They would only sell for like $100 anyway so might as well use the tread first.



So this is now the current look of the car. It's getting there now. It may be the ugly child when it comes to Subaru's but to me this is the most iconic Subaru ever made, and being the car I grew up in I have a soft spot for them.



Also now my new favourite photo of the overall car. You can see the fantastic condition of the paint. This is from a dodgy respray on the passenger side because of a sideswipe. Must have been light as they just replaced the doors and fender, nothing else.



That should be all for the exterior for a while. I only have been working on it as I'm waiting for an oil feed line to show up. Then I can do the oil and coolant lines finished and get the engine running properly. I'm still split between using project Lambda or just a FPR for the fuel management. I know that Lambda is much better but I don't know how to use it at all. Whereas a FPR is a fair bit cheaper and easier to use. What do people think?

That's all for now. In summary the project is going nicely and I'm hoping to be driving it by Christmas, so let's see how far I miss that deadline by.

Cheers, Luke :)
 
#75 · (Edited)
Great progress dude! The front end does indeed look mint with everything in there.

I'm kinda torn on engine management as well, might combine project lambda with an FIC6. Although apparently an ecu can only take so many reflashes? Something to think about if considering lambda, you may want to find a backup ecu.
https://www.rs25.com/forums/f105/22...eflash-tuning-master-reference-thread-22.html
Post 212

Either way, get something that can control fuel AND timing, at least. And you'll need a voltage clamp or something for the MAP cause it'll freak out the ecu when you hit positive manifold pressure.

...AEM FIC 6 controls fuel and timing, and has a voltage clamp. You'll need a couple 2.2-3kohm resistors tho...
 
#77 ·
Great progress dude! The front end does indeed look mint with everything in there.

I'm kinda torn on engine management as well, might combine project lambda with an FIC6. Although apparently an ecu can only take so many reflashes? Something to think about if considering lambda, you may want to find a backup ecu.
https://www.rs25.com/forums/f105/22...eflash-tuning-master-reference-thread-22.html
Post 212

Either way, get something that can control fuel AND timing, at least. And you'll need a voltage clamp or something for the MAP cause it'll freak out the ecu when you hit positive manifold pressure.

...AEM FIC 6 controls fuel and timing, and has a voltage clamp. You'll need a couple 2.2-3kohm resistors tho...
Have a good look into a speeduino too. I think they are advancing pretty damn well and theres a guy on facebook who can build a plug n play version. Isaac is his name i think?
Prices looks pretty good too (around $300AUD ish i think)

Cant wait to see this thing go, i'm still trying to finish welding my up and down pipes!
Damn you guy's know so much more than I do. The more I weigh up the options the more I think Lambda is the way to go. Is it able to deal with the positive manifold pressure or will I still need a voltage clamp??

I did have a quick look at Speeduino but it all goes over my head sadly and at least with Lambda the ECU is "stock" which makes it easier to engineer in Australia.

I've slowly been plodding along with the project and getting small things done hear and there. They always take way more time than predicted. I got the oil feed done which was way easier than expected.



I then cut the bracket to hold the up-pipe so it now isn't in the way of the turbo.



I then swapped over the wastegate on the turbo so it now has a 5-6 psi from a later SG9 one instead of the earlier 7-8 psi of a GD. I attached the oil drain hose, the silicone outlet and inlet, I flipped the top coolant feed so it now faces towards the transmission. It's now bolted in for hopefully the last time in a while.



I then made a support bracket for the intercooler pipe out of an off-cut of said pipe.



It's only being used to hold the pipe centre to the hole. It's mounted off a Riv-Nut that went through an existing hole. The piping has also been cut to fit a bit better. The paint scratches are from a rogue t-bolt clamp but I'm not to worried as it'll be covered by the airbox.



In addition to modifying the piping I also pulled it apart to make sure they had no residue left on the inside. I've only done the pipe you can see in the photo below. You can see on the side of the valve cover the oil hose soon to be tapped into the cover. I'll also need to sort out a air filter at some point too. That's going to be fun as in Australia the filter has to be in an airbox of some kind. Don't know exactly where it's going to fit.



And a final overview of the engine. You can see that I've started doing the plumbing for the turbo coolant. I ordered the 16-12-16 T fittings and they will hopefully be here in the next fortnight so that can get finalized.



All in there's not much left to do on the engine itself. Just tap the valve cover for the oil drain and T off the heater hoses for coolant. There's still plently more for after that but when the above are done I can actually run the engine again for more than a minute and start looking at tuning more seriously.

If anyone has any photos of where to tap the valve cover I'd really appreciate it because I'm getting to the point where I can't avoid doing it any more, but I can only find photos of a ej25D valve cover.

I also went through and made a list of the rest of the parts that need to be obtained. It's slowly getting shorter. The main items are a bonnet, midpipe, axleback and a mirror. There's a few interior pieces too but it's getting close. But I've probably missed something major in there.

Anyhow that's it for now
Cheers, Luke :)
 
#76 ·
Have a good look into a speeduino too. I think they are advancing pretty damn well and theres a guy on facebook who can build a plug n play version. Isaac is his name i think?
Prices looks pretty good too (around $300AUD ish i think)

Cant wait to see this thing go, i'm still trying to finish welding my up and down pipes!

 
#81 ·
I have and I wish I'd done it while the engine was out. I just don't feel like removing the engine/oil pan to do it at this point.
^I did that on an EJ25D recently, and the only semi direct route requires the drain line to basically touch the exhaust manifold/flange. I used some metallic heat wrap
on the hose, but it still melted. Might've been the hose I used tho.

Any rate, I'm thinking of going into the valve cover in my RS, but I may end up just tapping straight into the oil passage of the head. I'll post pictures if I get to it before you do, but I doubt that'll happen.
Yeah the route I've gone to clear the up-pipe is round the back near the steering column. I'll look at making a bracket to keep the hose of the up-pipe as I'd prefer it not to melt. The up-pipe is already heat wrapped so hopefully that'll help keep temps down too.
IAs far as the turbo drain goes, so many people have done the rocker cover route and had no issues. I'm going that way, theres a giant drain passage on the lower-rear corner of the head which runs straight to the crankcase. No oil will squirt/splash up onto the rocker gear as the flow rate is so low. At worst the rocker cover gaskets might fail early due to the temp.

I'll take a pic of mine and post up asap for you.
Yeah that would be fantastic as I'd like to get it done sooner rather than later.
If you want to run Project Lambda you can install a different map sensor, change the settings and you wont need a voltage clamp or anything like that.

I used a Bosch 0281002437 - 3 bar sensor. Plugs straight in BUT the mounting is a little different (1 bolt vs 2). Changed the Slope to 65.1kPa offset to -6.3kPa. Runs like a dream! I know you might be a little way off that but just in case you need the info in future..

Good website for sensor specs:
MKS Autobusiness, special components for special needs - Products
That's great to know. They're pretty cheap too which is always an added bonus
Great progress, you're so close!
Thanks, it feel weird to be this close as I don't know I ever truly thought I'd get this far.
 
#79 ·
^I did that on an EJ25D recently, and the only semi direct route requires the drain line to basically touch the exhaust manifold/flange. I used some metallic heat wrap
on the hose, but it still melted. Might've been the hose I used tho.

Any rate, I'm thinking of going into the valve cover in my RS, but I may end up just tapping straight into the oil passage of the head. I'll post pictures if I get to it before you do, but I doubt that'll happen.

Great progress, you're so close!
 
#80 · (Edited)
If you want to run Project Lambda you can install a different map sensor, change the settings and you wont need a voltage clamp or anything like that.

I used a Bosch 0281002437 - 3 bar sensor. Plugs straight in BUT the mounting is a little different (1 bolt vs 2). Changed the Slope to 65.1kPa offset to -6.3kPa. Runs like a dream! I know you might be a little way off that but just in case you need the info in future..

Good website for sensor specs:
MKS Autobusiness, special components for special needs - Products


As far as the turbo drain goes, so many people have done the rocker cover route and had no issues. I'm going that way, theres a giant drain passage on the lower-rear corner of the head which runs straight to the crankcase. No oil will squirt/splash up onto the rocker gear as the flow rate is so low. At worst the rocker cover gaskets might fail early due to the temp.

I'll take a pic of mine and post up asap for you.
 
#82 ·
Hey mate this is mine so far. Half welded the elbow to the cover but it turned to shit so have to grind it out and start again really. Then I've got some speedflow hose and will cover it with a shield.

Theres the oil drain passage i was talking about too, there's 1 at the front and rear of the head. Oil will run down the inside of the rocker cover, very little chance of it flooding or doing anything else.

I also got a 5/8 oil return kit off ebay so i can rotate it around etc.
45Deg 5/8" Turbo Oil Return Drain Pipe Kit Mitsubishi TD02 TD03 TD04 TD05 TD06 | eBay





 
#83 ·
So finally back at it after bit of a lull. I think trying to do a car on a budget makes it a bit hard to have motivation when you're seeing people doing $20,000 builds and you're working on a small percentage of that. Anyway I got back into it this weekend getting major progress done.

First I started by putting the car up on jack stands. This was done because I needed the wheels off it, it's impossible to work under otherwise, and I need fix the rear brakes/wheel underlay.



Next was to get the dump-pipe in. You couldn't pay me enough to do this job under the conditions I was in. The lack of height and the rocks made it a nightmare. I have a track on a BE5 STI midpipe and axleback so I will follow that up when I get the money from the guy picking up the wheels this week.



Next was to get the valve cover off. This job was way easier than expected taking like 5 minutes to do. I'd been putting it off for weeks. When I got it off I was amazed. This was so clean for having 425,000km (264,000 miles), mind you I haven't seen one before so I didn't know what to expect.



So I originally tried to tap the valve cover and that went badly. The fittings thread wasn't round so it wouldn't cut the thread. So I moved on to something else until I could come up with a solution.

Crjohnson your photos were invaluable for this so thanks for the location for the drilling.



Next was the coolant feed and return. I got these T fitting of eBay that are a 16-12-16. This meant I could just splice into the heater hose and go straight to the turbo with a single fitting.

Spliced heater hose.



Where I Tee'd in for one. I put clamps on after as I didn't have any on hand



And here's the other, just under the pitch stop mount. Same deal as before, I ran out of clamps at the time.



Next I went into town for coolant, hose clamps and whatever the Australian version of JB weld is called. My solution to the oil return was to just JB weld it in place. I'm not exactly proud but it will work well.



It was a pain to get the valve cover back on because of the fitting but we got there in the end. Foil below to stop oil leaking onto the headers. In the end pointless as you'll see later.



So next I fill up the car with coolant, tightened all the hose clamps more (apparently a screwdriver isn't enough) and started the car. It's ran really well and I was starting to burb the coolant when my brother noticed this.



Well my dumb ass didn't double check the AN fitting to the banjo bolt on the turbo and oil leaked all over the up-pipe. I originally thought it was from the oil drain but chased the problem back. So that's now fixed.

Now this wasn't the best way to end the day but it didn't dampen my spirits.

WE HAVE BOOST

I didn't have any of the intercooler piping connected but it works. This is a major win for me as until this point I hadn't really felt there was any progress despite the 5 months work and the $2395 spent so far.

Cheers for reading
Luke :)
 
#87 ·
Thanks man will do.

Anyway quick update. I sold the 4/2 pot brakes today for near twice what I paid for them and immediatly put the money to good use.

I picked up this today for steal. Cheapest I've seen is $370 but I spotted this at the local pick and payless website and got it for $65.



Its got a very small crack on the top edge (less than 10mm) and a small crack but you can't see them unless you look. I wasn't planning on getting on of the JDM Legacy ones but I needed a new one and when they both cost the same why not. Weirdly enough this came of a H6 Liberty which never had these standard as they were never released in Japan.

There was also a GD 2.5RS with alloy front control arm and King springs on KYB AGX struts as well as a Gen 4 Liberty TBSTI but nothing I'm really after so I left them.

Anyway I'll be back working on the car this Sunday/Monday so I'll post progress any progress after that.

Thanks for reading,
Luke :)
 
#90 ·
Cheers man
King springs! Want!
Haha they're everywhere over here. I have them on my GF8 and they were on the Outback for about 10 hours.

So I got back into it on Sunday. I ended up running the engine for about 20 minutes with no piping attached. No more oil leak. There is a really really slow drip coming from the seal of the thermostat housing but I'll fix that when I change it to a FB25 housing. It was a bit smokey at first due to burning the residue on the heatwrap off as well as an oil residue but it settled down and had no issues. It's also surprisingly quite even with no muffler so that's a bonus with the loudest noise being the air going into the manifold.

Next I removed the FMIC, crashbar and all external intercooler piping. I ended up painting the crashbar again as the paint just fell off if you touched it. I then added some thin foam on the inside to stop the pipe getting scratched. I also painted all external piping in wrinkle red as well making a few length adjustments. Monday I put all of it back together and this is result.

Passenger side piping.



Drivers side piping.



Front view.



I may raise the intercooler up slightly but it depends on where the bottom of the bumper sits as I don't want a gap between the two, hence why it's so low. Piping is still solid and not going anywhere even with it angled.

I then ran the engine for another 20 minutes this time with the piping attached. Still no issues. Even that leak from the thermostat housing has seem to disappeared. I'll still change the housing though. I revved it up to about 3k a few times and you can hear the turbo which is nice. I managed to pop off the intercooler pipe into the manifold as I didn't have a clamp on it so that means there pressure in the system.

All in all it feels a bit weird as I've been working towards this point for just over 5 months so it's a bit surreal when you get there.

Next I did a text fit of where the pod filter will go using a container of similar size. Looks like it'll fit under an airbox that I'll have to design so that's a relief.



Next I just made a simple bracket for the age alternator cover. Simple enough.



I then installed the alternator cover and gave the engine bay a quick wash and that's where I've left it for now.



Next step is really to start fabricating thinks like the bracket for the bottom of the intercooler & the airbox (which I picked up the metal for last week) & and intake (which I need to order piping for). There's still a few other small jobs which I'll as I go along when I need a break from that stuff. But overall it's getting there.

Then is looking at tuning. Still something I find pretty scary but I'll buy the licence after June with my tax return. I'll confirm it works with my ecu first. In the meanwhile I'll play around the software and try and get my head around fuel maps and timing.

The aim is to have the car back on the road legal by the 27th of December, as that marks the 1 year date from me started to work on the car (not including the interior) which I think is a reasonable goal.

Anyway thanks for reading,
Luke :)
 
#92 ·
Clean front design!
Cheers man
Why not clock the turbo and shorten the piping?
I guess I didn't think of that while I was doing the piping. With the hot side going to the passenger side (your driver side) I would have to switch the routing and for a td04 it's probably not worth it with it hitting boost so early anyway.
 
#94 ·
Is that with a ej25 and a TD04?

Got a bit more done this weekend. Only really got to work on it for an afternoon because of the rain which sucked but what can you do. Started with modifying the fuel lines because they were hard up an intercooler pipe causing one of them to slightly kink. All I did was bend the bracket to allow for the lines to sit higher. Still using the stock bolting point.



I then trimmed the front bumper with an angle grinder again to get it to fit the intercooler better. After that I mad the two brackets that link the core support to the bottom of the intercooler. These probably weren't needed as there was barely any play in the intercooler but I figured it was worth doing plus it allowed me to extend them to hold the bumper in place.



Photo of newly trimmed bumper with brackets in place. I really need to get a new bonnet like yesterday.



The fitment is the best I've seen for a front mount on this chassis as they usually hang way low so I'm pretty happy with it. You can see a comparison in the next photo of the original fitment and how it looks as of now. Before (top) there was a shitty gap and I was thinking that I'd have to get a taller intercooler but that's all been fixed.



Earlier in the week I loaded up Project Lamdba and man this all goes over my head. I can see why people just use tuners. Now I know that I'll have to change the airflow scalar when I get the new MAP sensor but apart from that I'm lost.

I know that I'll have to increase fuel but which category do I change it in. Base, transition or power mode (I assume that warmup and deceleration aren't it). If anyone knows, or even has screenshots of what they've done to add fuel that would be great. On the topic of this program is there a good website or book I can use to learn how to understand and tune using it. Idk maybe there's a tuning for dummies or something. I'm just a bit lost and I have no background knowledge on this at all and it would be great to get a starting point.

Anyway thanks for reading
Luke :)
 
#97 ·
I'd guess it would make a slight difference, but it's good to know anyway.
Nice fitment on the FMIC
Thanks, I'm glad it looks so good after how much time I've spent worrying and working on it.

Been a little while since I've updated this. Not to much to document as a lot of its boring so here's the highlights. I went to the wreckers and bought - a passenger rear door outer kick panel as the old one was broken, front fender liners for both sides as the old ones were done, new passenger mirror and a few interior bits. I replaced the kick panel, and installed the fender liner. The passenger side will need some work as it clashes with an intercooler pipe.

I replaced both mirrors for reasons you'll see below. I already had this one hanging around from a previous parts run. This side had a canoe fall on it.



Dunno what happened to this side but it had a lot of silicone in it. Sadly the replacement has a small crack on the outer edge. I'll try and plastic weld it back together and if that doesn't work I'll try and swap the shell with the old one.



I also replaced a dash vent as it was broken but that was a bit of a slow weekend.

This weekend I focused on the intake. I bought Super Cheap Autos finest (cheapest) filter as it was the smallest. I wasted a lot of the day trying to figure out how to get the 3" filter on to the 2.25" pipe, only to come up with a solution, and then have it fail immediately. I think I have a clever solution that will be shown when parts arrive.

Here was the original mock-up with the filter. You can see that the top section of piping still needed to be worked out.



I then decided that I didn't like that and here is the result as of the end of the next day . This after about 4 hours of thinking in the cold and another 2 hours of drinking tea to warm back up. I stole a 90 degree piece from the hot side to see if it would work and it seems it will.



And here's the final result with the filter in place.



I still need a few bits to complete it but it fits, so yay. You can see where I stole the 90 degree piece from on the right.

I'm annoyed that it's taking so long at the moment, but its hard with it being 5 degrees outside and then having to wait for parts that you didn't even think you'd even need. So hopefully I'll have some more progress soon enough as more parts have been ordered.

Thanks for reading,
Luke :)
 
#99 ·
It's actually not that bad to be honest. I'd don't think it'll do any harm but if I ever upgrade turbos I'd look at one with a 90 degree bend

So sad news is that my GF8 was rear ended on the weekend and is probably going to be totaled. So not much work happened on the car. I'm looking at the positives and that is that I can grab a few good parts off it. The list as it stands it the steering wheel and front end links. It also allows me to swap the lift kit over to the GF8 and de-lift this car in the front at least. So in an overall shitty situation but I'm trying hard to find the positives.

So all I really did is just work on the intake. I was going to complete the intercooler piping but I got sent the wrong part. So all it did to attached the silicone adapter to the filter was create a sleeve out of a bit of PVC pipe. I'll grab some more photos at a later point but this is all I have.



So that's all for now. Not much else will probably happen for a while because of the car situation and it being so damn cold but I'll keep trying.

Luke :)
 
#101 ·
So here is the update from the past two weeks. Last weekend I wasn't up to much so I just worked on the filter fitment. Below is an image of the sleeve to join the filter to the silicone joiner. You can see the line where I've welded the PVC together.



I also cut down the silicone joiner just for better fitment. Next step is air box when I stop putting off making it.



That was it for that weekend. Like I said it was a slow one.

During the week I had the idea to try out some wheels and colours on Photoshop. They're not great but given that I only started learning it last week they aren't the worst. Below are the different variations I've tried so far. Honestly I thought I'd like the single colour more than I do. My favorite is the two tone with the CE28's. Opinions would be great and I'd love to hear suggestions on what things to try.





This weekend I finally picked up only of the next pieces of the puzzle on Saturday afternoon. Got this strapped to the top of the trusty little Impreza, made driving an hour on the highway interesting. On the note of the GF8, I should be settling privately this week for the damages to the car which means it won't become a repairable write-off which was likely given the value. I'll fix it myself when that's done as I still need a daily and am rather fond of the nugget.



So on Sunday after servicing the Impreza I got to work cleaning and painting the hinges and surrounding engine bay. I also did some touch-up work on the firewall as I may or may not have scratched it a while back with pipe.



Bonnet fitted. I've found both this bonnet and the old one aren't a fan of latching without a lot of force so I think the latch might be a bit bent. I have a simple solution to that so stay tuned.



Also found out today that the Liberty/Legacy grills are shallower than the outbacks. This leaves around a 1cm gap below which won't do. I'm thinking I'll get an outback grill and modify it to be similar to a S401 grill with the black mesh behind.



I then just removed the grill as this car hasn't had a grill for 6 months, so why should it start now. As standard one bolt was seized and it too about 30 minutes to get it off.



I then cut the stock hood insulation of the old bonnet to suit this one. It's not perfect so I may source a genuine one at some point but it works for now.



The last thing for the day was the wire in the brake light on the wing. The car I pulled it off had the trusty twist and tape method so I picked up a factory brake light plug off another outback and wired that in.



I definitely shouldn't work in wiring with the kinda quality. Pic isn't the best as it was pitch black by this point.



I have no idea if it works so I'll test it next week or whenever I work on the car next.

That's all for now so thanks for reading
Luke :)
 
#104 ·
Yeah I was lucky the guy gave me a bunch of extra clips as I destroyed about half of the clips. The old one had the integrity of a wet paper bag.

Yeah in Australia we get similar sun too. My Impreza's paint has faded a bit on the hood even with the liner but the roof is way worse and that's just from the sun alone.
Yeaaaa, to reiterate: Yours is way way waaaaay cleaner than mine, clearly more thought out. Love the filter location.
Cheer man. I appreciate it. Yeah that filter was a bitch to get in a decent place, and worse to come I have to get it to fit in an airbox to get it legally registered.
The grill thing is weird. I took an outback grill from an H6 sedan and slapped it right on my LGT when I did my first H6 swap. Same generation as yours too, must be an Australian thing. :p
Yeah I posted in a Gen 3 Legacy/Liberty/Outback and apparently for whatever reason Subaru made the Rev D outback bumper sit lower in the grill area. Why??? I have no idea. I spotted an outback grill at the wreckers so I'll probably grab that this weekend to modify to be similar to a S401 grill.
 
#103 ·
Yeaaaa, to reiterate: Yours is way way waaaaay cleaner than mine, clearly more thought out. Love the filter location.

The grill thing is weird. I took an outback grill from an H6 sedan and slapped it right on my LGT when I did my first H6 swap. Same generation as yours too, must be an Australian thing. :p
 
#106 ·
Haha yeah. Plus this car had the air filter up where a top mount would sit and the resonator where the older air boxes sit (such as in the gen 2 Legacy's and 1st gen Impreza's).

If I could have used a factory air box I would have in a heartbeat
 
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